4. Internet Resources (particularly those not described in
other chapters)

Note:
Now that the Internet is usually the preferred choice
for information and music, the original organization of this guide into
separate
chapters for "Internet Resources" vs. hard resources such as printed books
and CDs is anachronistic. Currently some major resources on the
Internet, such as important digitized tunebooks, are listed in other
chapters of this guide rather than this one, so it is important to
check multiple chapters.

World Wide Web sites not devoted primarily to audio or image files

Note: The first two Web sites described below
are good places to start learning about the world of Sacred Harp and related
shape-note music. Both sites should be consulted, because
each presents much
worthy and nonoverlapping material.

Sacred
Harp Singing by Professor Warren Steel at the University of
Mississippi Department of Music. This resource is actively maintained by Prof.
Steel, a foremost authority on early American psalmody and the Sacred Harp
tradition. It includes the following important resources:

Of particular value are Mr. Steel's hyperlinks to tremendous music
resources on the WWW, to be found by clicking on "-Warren Steel" to get his
own homepage. Note that there is no "e" at the end of his frequently
misspelled last name.

Downloadable and searchable minutes of Sacred Harp singings
from the 1991 Edition from 1995 to the year previous to the current one
(see description below)

Statistics on the frequency of Sacred Harp songs appearing in the
Minutes(1991 Edition).

The Sacred Harp Online Index (described below)and other indices

Links to other important resources (individually described below)

Links to articles in the press and on radio about Sacred Harp singing

Where to direct further inquiries

The Sacred Harp Online
Index by Chris Thorman. This important online resource is an
integrated set of indices of all lyrics, words, phrases, titles, page numbers,
poets, composers, and meters in the The Sacred Harp, 1991 Edition.
All of the indices are hyper-linked with the song lyrics and vice-versa." For
example, one can look up a word in the concordance, find a list of songs using
the word, and then click on the name of a listed song to reveal the complete
lyrics and information of that song. There is also a list of the 200 most common
words in the tunebook. This series of indices is reached through Fasola.org. This
Web resource duplicates Mr. Thorman's printed Sacred Harp Concordance,
which can be ordered from lulu.com for $9.06 plus shipping.

Cooper
Book Tunes (online
index) prepared by Martha Henderson and Tim Slattery, assisted
by Robert Vaughn and webmaster Miriam Kilmer, is an integrated set of indices
to all of
the songs in the B.F. White Sacred Harp Revised Cooper Edition
2000 Revision. The tunes can be
selectively sorted and displayed in the order of page number, tune name,
composer, tune date, author, lyric date, meter, first line, or name of
the same tune in the Denson Revision/1991 Edition. Optionally, all of these
fields can be displayed in a spreadsheet. This project was the brainchild
of Martha Henderson, who typed all of the data. Robert Vaughn supplied the
song meters. Tim Slattery wrote the sorting program, and Miriam Kilmer
provides Web space.

Comparison
Tune Index Between the 1991 Denson Revision and the 2012 Cooper
Revision by Gaylon Powell, assisted by Robert Vaughn, Karen
Willard, and Berkley Moore. This highly useful index compares the tunes
that are found in both the 1991 "Denson" Edition and the 2012 Cooper Edition. The main
comparison is with respect to page numbers; in addition, any differences
in the tune (tenor part) are noted. (The alto part is different between
the books for most songs and therefore is not notated.) Tunes which
appear in one but not the other book are also listed.

Minutes of Sacred Harp
Singings. The minutes of singings from The Sacred
Harp, 1991 Edition from 1995 through the year before the current one
have been compiled
electronically by Shelbie Sheppard, Pam Nunn, Carolyn Deacy, Chris Thorman,
Keith Willard, David Ivey, and others. This database is available on the World
Wide Web. One can browse the full directory or search by song number or full
names of singers. Song numbers are hyperlinked to the title and lyrics. An
added feature (to be used only if really needed) is downloadable zipped PDF
files of the Sacred Harp Minutes Online Edition, which
includes the Minutes, Directory of Singings, and Deaths sections of the
annual printed minutes books.

Shape Note
Bibliography, compiled by John Bealle. Extensively expanded in
1998, this is a impressive and useful guide to books, journal articles
and other materials on shape note singing through 1998, compiled by an
historian/folklorist/sociologist who has sung Sacred Harp music for decades.
The listings are classified under the following headings: bibliographic sources,
concepts, culture groups, geographic regions, influences, musical forms,
tunebook compilers, and tunebooks.

Shape
Note Recordings Index, compiled by Berkley
Moore. This very useful resource lists essentially every audio recording of
Sacred
Harp and Sacred Harp-style music that is or has recently been in print and
distributed to the public, including field recordings and performances by
amateur and professional groups. Many recordings of
English West Gallery music are also listed. The index consists of two
sections: (1) an index of tunes, which lists all albums in which each tune
is found, and (2) an index of albums which lists all tunes on each album.

Sacred Harp Memories
compiled by R. Ryan. Texas Sacred Harp Singer Ron Ryan has created a
rapidly growing online repository of historical materials generally not
found elsewhere -- documents, audio, and video -- related to Sacred Harp
singing (both Denson and Cooper books, but mostly Denson). The purpose is
to preserve for posterity materials and memorabilia that were produced
mainly by singers themselves and that might be eventually lost otherwise.
The collection currently includes many audio files derived from cassette
tapes of singings from the 1960s through the 1990s, various singer-produced
videos and photos of singings, minutes of singings, a 1944 booklet published
for the Sacred Harp Centennial Celebration, a 1953 appreciation of George
Pullen Jackson, and more. As of this writing, content other than videos are temporarily offline and may return as early as February 2014. However, the many videos of Sacred Harp singings can be viewed on Vimeo.

Maps to Shape-Note
Singings, produced by Karen Willard and Tim Slattery. The
remarkable site on the Fasola.org Page contains two very high-quality maps
(large and small format) with driving directions and information on singings
for each of many singing locations, with emphasis on the hard-to-find
locations in the rural South. Over 280 singings at over 210 locations were
included as of last count, and additional ones are being added as work
proceeds and as new singings are established.
Karen Willard researched and created the maps and driving directions, while
Tim Slattery did the CGI programming.

Shape-Note Pages
of Ishmael the Fiddler,aka F. Ishmael J. M.
Stefanov-Wagner. Ishmael the Fiddler has several informative pages on his Web
site at MIT. One is entitled Shape-Note Historical Background, and explains the
history of the shapes in shape-note singing. It has informative photos of pages
from the Bay Psalme Book, John Tufts's Introduction to the Singing of
Psalm-Tunes, and Andrew Law's Musical Primer.

Chronological Index of
The Sacred Harp (1991 Edition) compiled by Duncan
Vinson. This page, now on the Fasola.org Web site, lists the tunes (page numbers
only) in the order of the date of the composition of the music, as published
in the tunebook. Mr. Vinson was an ethnomusicology student at Brown University.

"Sacred Harp Singing
School
Workbook" and audio files by David I. Lee and Karen E.
Willard, July 2005 edition. David Lee of Hoboken, GA and Karen Willard
of Seattle, WA collaborated to produce an outstanding 45-page booklet
with 27 audio files, for teaching the rudiments of music written in
the fa-sol-la-mi four-shape notation and for singing Sacred Harp music.
It is ideal for potential singers who have not attended an actual
singing school or who are having trouble learning Sacred Harp singing.
Karen Willard writes: "At the above website you'll see a PDF workbook
for beginners that you can download and print out. Then depending upon
whether you want MP3 files or the much larger .wav audio files, you
can download the many many examples that illustrate the workbook. The
scales are repeated numerous times, both major scale and minor scale,
in both a male voice and a female voice." This resource has helped many
people without a strong musical background learn to sing.

Christian Harmony Web
page
now for both editions, maintained by
Mary Baumeister and others. Information, schedules, and minutes of
singings from both the 1873 Walker edition of Christian Harmony in
western North Carolina and the Deason-Parris Christian Harmony
in Alabama and Mississippi (information on Al-MS singings supplied by Tim
Cook). There is also sections presenting recipes, ordering information for
tunebooks and CDs, and verses that are not in the tunebooks.

The Online
Southern Harmony, by Harry Plantinga. This Web site, which is
the brainchild of Prof. Plantinga of Wheaton College and appears to be under
construction, is an index of William Walker's Southern Harmony and
Musical Companion
(1854 edition). Each song is accompanied by an image of the original score,
complete song text, tune attributions, and printable GIF images. Some songs
also
have MIDI sound files contributed by Peter B. Irvine. There are indices and a
search engine as well. This resource is in the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Wheaton College.

Northern Harmony Online
Index. This index contains information about songs in the
Northern Harmony, Fourth Edition (see chapter 1). The format is exactly the same as that of the
Sacred Harp Online Index by Chris Thorman but is being maintained by Robert
Stoddard.

Rising Dove
Bookstore of Miriam Kilmer. This Web page lists
conveniently most or all shape note music-related books and recordings sold by
or through the online stores Amazon.com, Borders.com, Alibris.com, and American
Book Exchange. It contains links to the informative
Amazon pages for each item.

Practical Guides to Sacred Harp Singing by Virginia W. Ely and
others. Ginnie Ely is a noted Boston-area shape-note singer who has
had many years of experience in singing
and leading Sacred Harp music in the North and South, in observing and
participating in successful traditional practices at Southern singings, and in
organizing the New England Sacred Harp Convention. These essays are found
in Prof. Warren Steel's Web site at the URLs indicated below:

Guide to
Organizing a Sacred Harp Convention, by Ginnie Ely, written in
1995, is an invaluable resource for singing groups new to Sacred Harp
convention organization. It tells organizers exactly what needs to be done at
various times before the convention.

Front-Bench Tenors
at Sacred Harp Conventions by Ginnie Ely is a brief explanationof the duties
of front-row tenors. These not-to-be-underestimated duties help the song
leader and promote the unity of the voices around the hollow square.

Arranging
Committee Tips by Linton Ballinger. This very helpful article
regarding the fine art of calling leaders at singings is reprinted from
the Huntsville Sacred Harp Newsletter. Editor David Ivey writes: "Linton
Ballinger comes from a large family of fine singers in Fayette County,
Alabama.... Linton provides much insight with this helpful article based
on his experience of ably serving many singings as an arranging committee
member."

Miss
Grace Notes' Advice on All Things Sacred
Harp.. In the 1990s, the Chicago Sacred Harp Newsletter
(no longer published) featured a column (written in the style of Miss
Manners' column and books) providing advice to novice Northern Sacred
Harpers on the proper etiquette of Sacred Harp singings. Although the
identity of Miss Grace Notes was not disclosed, the advice reflects
extensive knowledge of Southern Sacred Harp practices. Now Karen Willard
has provided many of the columns on the Pacific Northwest Sacred Harp
Web site "so that an entirely new crop of Sacred Harp singers may benefit
from her wisdom and graciously imparted knowledge of Sacred Harp ways."

"The
Sacred
Harp as Experimental Composition," essay by Prof.
Neely Bruce. Prof. Bruce
presented this paper at the first All-Ireland Sacred Harp Singing
Convention at University College Cork in March 2011. While giving a
background to Sacred Harp music to those unfamiliar with it, the paper
goes further to present a fresh and interesting perspective on the music,
emphasizing the novel aspects of its harmonic idiosyncrasies and spatial
quality.

The
African American
Shape Note Singing Project
Facebook page by Chiquita and Benny Walls. Ms. Walls teaches American
history at Rust College in Holly Spring, MS. She is an authority on
Mississippi's African American shape-note tradition, as described in an
article
she wrote in 1999. She and her late husband Benny Walls began the African
American Shape Note
Singing Project Facebook page to foster the African-American shapenote
singing tradition
which includes Sacred Harp, Christian Harmony,and seven-shape Gospel-style
music.

Names of tunes from several early shapenote tunebooks
compiled so that the most popular tunes can be identified and correlated
with tunes in the 1860 and 1991 editions of The Sacred Harp.
The tunebooks include The Easy Instructor (1816), Kentucky
Harmony (1816), The Missouri Harmony (1840), Wyeth's
Repository of Sacred Music parts 1 and 2 (1820), Virginia
Harmony (1836), and Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
(1854).

A listing of tune names in Richard Crawford's bookThe Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody (see chapter 2) referenced by shapenote books in which each
tune can be found (in or out of print).

Matchings of traditional Christmas carols to
metrically appropriate songs from The Sacred Harp.

Chronological
Biography of B. F. White by Donald Stephen Clarke. B.F. White,
originally from South Carolina, was the principal compiler of The Sacred
Harp (first edition 1844). This interesting biographical resource was
placed on the Web by the author's cousin Prof. Charles Wells.

"Hoboken
Style: Meaning and Change in Okefenokee Sacred Harp Singing,"
by Laurie Kay Sommers. This outstanding article in the peer-reviewed
online journal Southern Spaces (of the Emory University Libraries)
contains a scholarly essay, photos, 11 audio recordings, and 7 video
recordings, all dealing with the Sacred Harp singing of the Okefenokee
region of southeast George and northeast Florida, centering around the
extended Lee family. The distinctive variant characteristics of Sacred
Harp singing are presented and contrasted with Primitive Baptist
lined-out hymn singing. The audio recordings come from various
traditional sings (singings) in the area. The video recordings
generally feature David I. Lee conducting a singing school and providing
demonstrations at several sings. The essay has an excellent and probably
unique presentation of the relation between Primitive Baptist subsects
in the Okefenokee area and Sacred Harp singing, and on the recent
hybridization of the singing style after the Lee family discovered and
interacted extensively with the broader Sacred Harp community. There
are extensive footnotes and a bibliography. Ms. Sommers is an independent
scholar of folklore. (Note: This resource guide generally does not list
journal articles about Sacred Harp singing, but this one is a worthy
exception.)

The Hymn Tune
Index: A Census of English-Language Hymn Tunes in Printed Sources from 1535
to 1820by Nicholas
Temperley, assisted by Charles G. Manns, and Joseph Herl. The
description
by the publisher of the print version of The
Hymn Tune Index states: "This unique reference is the first systematic
guide to the history of the English-language hymn tune, as represented in
printed sources from the earliest (Coverdale's Goostly Psalmes) to
1820. Using a simple numerical code to represent the first two lines of each
melody, the book allows the reader to look up any of nearly 20,000 British and
American hymn tunes without advance knowledge of the composer, name, or text.
The online search engine can be used to query the Hymn Tune Index database for
specific information, including tune name, incipit (beginning of melody),
composer, and attribution, as well as hymn texts (first two lines). For
example, one can find all listed tune(s) having a given incipit, all listed
tunes by a given composer, or all listed tunes associated with a given text.
Information on musical sources in which a given tune appeared can subsequently
be obtained. " (The printed version is out of print.) The Web site's
main entry URLs is http://hymntune.library.uiuc.edu/.

The Dictionary of North American
Hymnology at Hymnary.org.The Dictionary of North American
Hymnology is a comprehensive online master bibliography and index of
hymn collections published in the United States and Canada from 1640 to
1978. Hymns from 4,875 collections are indexed by collection code, year
the collection was published, first line, author/translator/adaptor,refrain,
and title. Hymnals and collections of hymns are indexed by collection code,
title, compiler/editor, and place-publisher-year of publication. [Note that
the strict hymnological definition of "hymn" is the text or the words that
are sung, not the tune.] The The Sacred Harp is one of the
hymnals indexed. Hymnary.org is
a broad project of the Christian Classics
Ethereal Library and the Calvin
Institute of Christian Worship, to which the DNAH has been recently
added. Hymnary.org also has author biographies from John Julian's
Dictionary of Hymnology. This comprehensive database should be highly
useful to those seriously interested in hymns.

Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College. This is an extensive resource of
digitized books, audio files, and other electronic resources. The revised
website makes browsing more difficult than before and best accessed by
its search engine. For example, searching under "hymns" retrieves many
old hymnals, but a more efficient search requires searching under more
specific titles, authors, or composers.

Web sites featuring audio files of shape-note music

Voices Across America, is
a project of June
Melton, who travels around the U.S. in search of
musicians performing Christian music such as traditional hymns, gospel,
spirituals, bluegrass, and Sacred Harp. There
are now many interesting shape-note singing field recordings in the Sacred
Harp category. For example, there are audio files from
recent Chattahoochee (Georgia) and Minnesota Sacred Harp Conventions, a
monthly singing at the Antioch Baptist Church in Ider, Alabama, a Harmonia
Sacra singing in Indiana, several New
Harp of Columbia singings in
Tennessee, and songs from a shape-note singing school in Mississippi
during which well-known songs were sung in the Choctaw (Indian) language.
In addition, there are audio files of songs performed by several performing
ensembles.

Audio recordings
of Robert Stoddard on BostonSing.com. Mr. Stoddard of
Boston/Charlestown, MA has been digitally recording singings he has
attended, most but not all Sacred Harp, since 2009 throughout the U.S.
He has placed MP3 files of many recorded songs on his BostonSing.org
website. His index lists
all songs in the 1991 Sacred Harp with links to recordings
on his site and on a few external sites. He has nearly achieved his
goal of having recordings of every song in the book.

[Ingall's] Christian Harmony
Recordings produced by Thomas
Malone. Tom Malone, editor
of The Christian Harmony and Songster's Companion by Jeremiah Ingalls,
Bicentennial 2005 Edition has produced over four CD field recordings
of singing of the songs from the bicentennial edition (see Chapter 5). He has also produced in 2007 a CD of less
popular songs from this book in which he sings all four parts
(See Chapter 6). Will Fitzgerald has placed
streaming audio files of most or all of the tracks of these five
recordings on his Web site at http://www.entish.org/ch/.

Folksong recordings of John Quincy Wolf, Jr. Folklorist
John Quincy Wolf, Jr.
collected and recorded folksongs of the South and recorded over 60 Sacred
Harp singings in northern Mississippi and Alabama in the 1960s. Some of his
collections are maintained by Lyon College in Arkansas. Many field
recordings were donated in 2012 by his daughter to the University of
Mississippi library.

Field
Recordings maintained at the University of Mississippi.
Professor Warren Steel writes: "Dr. Wolf's daughter has recently given
a large collection of field recordings (some 84 cassettes) to the University
of Mississippi. These can now be heard online in streaming audio. The finding
aid to the archival collection tells the date and location but not
listings of individual songs or links to the audio in this list. More
convenient will be the digital
archive itself where you can choose a tape to listen to. Included
are African American singing from Ozark Al, Southern Harmony (Big
Singing Day), Christian Harmony (accompanied on piano!), and other
styles and books; the Mississippi singings include both "fasola"
and "doremi.""

"Amazing
Grace" Web site of the Library of Congress. The Library of
Congress launched in 2007 an extensive Web site devoted to the history
of the most famous hymn sung to a tune with shape-note origins, "Amazing
Grace." The site features the Chasanoff/Elozua Amazing Grace Collection
of published recordings of the hymn by various musicians. It is a joint
venture of several divisions of the Library as well as the American
Folklife Center. Of interest to shape-note singers are several early and
unpublished recordings. These include the earliest
known (1922) recording of of "New Britain" by the Original Sacred Harp
Choir, a 1929
recording by the Allison Sacred Harp Singers using the tune "Jewett," a
previously unavailable 1942
recording of "New Britain" by Alan Lomax and George Pullen Jackson at
the Alabama Sacred Harp Convention, and a 1986
recording of "New Britain" by the Boston Camerata (from a live concert).
Of further interest is a 1942
interview by Alan Lomax of the dynamic Sacred Harp great Paine Denson,
in which he praises the authenticity of the music in The Sacred
Harp and derides new harmonizations of "Amazing Grace/New Britain"
and "The Promised Land." The Web site also has a useful timeline
and several examples of early printed versions of "Amazing Grace" (see image
file section below).

Voice-part audio files on the Sacred
Harp Bremen website. This website mostly in the German
language has a remarkable teaching resource: Under the heading Lieder
(songs), there are links to computer-generated audio files for each
voice part of each song in The Sacred Harp 1991 Edition. One
can listen separately to each computer-generated voice part -- treble
(labeled Sopran), treble an octave lower, alto, tenor, bass) and all
four (or three) parts together -- with words of the first verse. The
parts are pleasantly "sung" by a computer with what sounds like a British
accent. Each voice part is heard not in isolation but with the other
parts audible softly in the background. An image of the score of the
featured song isvisible below the buttons for the audio files. For
some songs, there are also links to YouTube videos of the featured
song sung by real people at various singings in Europe and the UK.

"Sacred Harp.mus": Audio
files of songs in
The Sacred Harp and other shape-note tunebooks
prepared by Terre
Schill. As described by Ms. Schill, "This page offers audio .mus files of
songs in the 1991 Revision and Cooper book of The Sacred Harp
[and now Southern Harmony, Christian Harmony
(Alabama and North Carolina editions), New Harp of Columbia,
and Harmonia Sacra].
These files are not intended to be an entirely realistic representation of
Sacred Harp songs as sung, but rather to be useful to singers in learning
new songs, or new parts to already-familiar songs. To play these files you
must have the Myriad Plug-In, freeware, 1553 kb. This will enable you to
play songs at this Web site in either the default piano or the synthetic
"virtual singer" voice or to download them to be played on one's own
Melody/Harmony Assistant program to enable one to play only one or two
parts in isolation for easier learning."

Will Fitzgerald has
created a Web page
linking the lyrics of songs in the 1991 Edition compiled by Chris Thorman
on the fasola.org site with the music
files on Sacred Harp.mus.

Music from The
American Vocalist Web site, compiled by John Kay.
The American Vocalist was published in Boston in 1848-49 by
D.H. Mansfield. It contains many early 19th century singing school tunes,
published in standard round notation, and is long out of print. John Kay
has an ongoing project to post online MIDI files and scanned pages for
all songs in the book. He is also adding MIDI files and scans from other
out of print tunebooks as well. Note: Scans of the entire tunebook are
now available on Google
Books.

"The Other Old
Way" is another growing collection of MIDI files prepared by
Michael Moore. It features tunes from mainstream books of compilers and
composers like Lowell Mason, Thomas Hastings, William Batchelder Bradbury,
Luther Orlando Emerson, and George Root. Mr. Moore writes: "Many of these
writers' tunes really were written for beginners and sound somewhat ordinary,
but quite a few have very interesting ideas and sounds."

Apple's iTunes Music
Store. Many Sacred Harp
songs found on CDs described elsewhere in this guide are currently
available for download as MP3 files for $0.99 per song, and several
entire
albums are available for $9.99. Many of the recent commercial recordings
listed in this guide are available on iTunes. To see what
is available, one needs to download the free iTunes software (for PC or
Mac) from http://www.apple.com/itunesand then
search the database with this software.

Web sites featuring image files of shape-note music scores, both old
and new

The Hesperian
Harp: a Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Odes and Anthems by
William Hauser, 1848, images compiled by Berkley Moore.The Hesperian Harp is one of the most important 19th century
tunebooks. As Berkley Moore writes, it "is the largest and arguably the
best of the shape-note tune books of the Nineteenth Century." The songs
are written in the four-shape fasola notation, are stylistically similar
to those found in The Sacred Harp, and include many composed
by Hauser himself. Berkley Moore has scanned all 552 pages of this tunebook
including the Preface and Indices.

A Supplement to the
Kentucky Harmony, retypeset by Robert Stoddard.
Mr. Stoddard has completely reset the entire
Supplement with modern legible scores and texts (generated by Lilypond)
with correction of obvious errors in the original. His high quality
working draft
of all of the book is found as a PDF (3.3 MB) on his website under the
subtitle SupplKtHarmony.

Web sites of the Library of Congress's American Memory Project containing images of
all pages of important early American shape-note tunebooks:

Scans of early American
tunebooks on the IMSLP/Petrucci Music
Library. The International Music Score Library Project
(IMSLP) has a huge yet growing wiki-like public-domain virtual music
library. It has complete scans of the original editions of several
New England tunebooks (written in round notes). As reported by David
Wright, the easiest way to browse is by composer name, by
which one can find the following tunebooks:

The
Federal Harmony (1793) compilation attributed to Timothy
Swan but more likely compiled by the printer John Norman

The
American Vocalist (Revised Edition, 1849) compiled by D. H.
Mansfield. Scans of the complete tunebook (with scores in round
rather than shaped notes) are freely available on Google Books.

The Cooperative
Digital Resources
Initiative of the American Theological Library Association has
scanned and made available online seven shaped-note tunebooks and hymnals
from the Bowld Music Library of the Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary. The set of 2981 images can be accessed by going to the Browse the
Collections page and checking "Shape-note tune books." Most of the
tunes appear to be in the "better music" category. The tunebooks scanned
(with hyperlinks to the first page of each) are listed below. (However,
with some browsers under some circumstances the ATLA server fails to
process the URL and directs you to their general search page.) (Thanks
to Barbara Swetman for providing these links):

The
Norristown Musical Teacher (1832) by a Professor of
Music. Berkley Moore provides this information: "It was
published in Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1832 and is apparently unique
among shape-note books because it can easily be construed as either a
four-shape or a seven-shape book depending on the preference or
inclination of the user. This effect is achieved by making three of the
shapes added to the traditional four minimally different from the
shapes that they replace." This tunebook was scanned also by John and
Hans Bayer, and those images are downloadable from the BostonSing website.

Early American
tunebooks newly retypeset by Robert Stoddard. Mr. Stoddard of
Boston/Charlestown, MA has been using the Lilypond program to produce
more legible and singable scores of songs from several tunebooks.
He writes: "These are "pretty good drafts" -- certainly not final,
but I believe they are accurate and readable."

The Harmony
of Maine (1824) by Supply Belcher. All songs
not already appearing in The Sacred Harp or Norumbega
Harmony (43 songs) are retypeset. Mr. Stoddard writes: "In my
work I have found discords in the music as printed, a large fraction
of which I believe to be poor engraving rather than intentional. I
have used my judgment in making conservative changes in those cases."

The Trumpet, online
periodical of new songs, edited by Will Fitzgerald, Thomas Malone,
R.L. Vaughn, and Rachel Wells Hall, with musical typesetting by James
Nelson Gingerich.
Modeled after a newspaper called "The Organ" published by B.F. White
in the mid 19th century, The Trumpet was launched in
2011 for the online publication of new songs/tunes in the Sacred Harp
style, along with feedback about the tunes from singers, audio files
of some of the songs, and articles and historical material about
Sacred Harp. The editors write: "These songs will be enjoyed best at
practice singings, house/kitchen/porch singings, or night singings
where people gather to enjoy hearing new music." Three issues per year
have been published so far, with each issue containing up to 12-14
new tunes formatted as PDFs that can be printed and sung. The first
three years have been a rousing success, with new tunes from many composers,
some previously well known and others (including some from the UK and
Poland) introducing their talents for the first time. The issues are
available as downloadable PDFs online, or can be sent directly in the
mail. At the year's end, a "Digest Edition" containing all the songs
of the year and a CD will be available at a nominal cost.

New Compositions in the Style of the
Sacred Harp, compiled by Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg. The
front page states: "This web site features new tunes, written in the
style of the Sacred Harp, by several composers from the Northeastern
and Northwestern United States. Through this web site, we hope to
share our music with other interested singers, and to explore and
contribute to the understanding of Sacred Harp composition." The site
includes compositions by several very active and talented composers
and singers.

The Minnesota Harmony Project. This
site is a place where shape note songwriters from Minnesota (and beyond)
can put copies of their scores for evaluation and singing by the shapenote
singing community. The site also has retypeset scores of hard-to-find
early American music, including some by William Billings.

Web sites featuring past radio programs about shape-note music

NPR program
"Sacred Harp Singers," 1979.Cleve Callison, then of
WLRH Public Radio, Huntsville, AL, produced an
award-winning documentary of close to one hour in length on Sacred Harp
singing which was aired on National Public Radio's "Options" series in
October, 1979. Twenty-five years later he has recently placed on the
Web MP3 files of all segments of this program for listening over the
Internet. The program includes the singing of 22 songs and interviews
of singers at the 1978 United Sacred Harp Convention in Arab, AL, and
the 1979 Holly Springs Singing in Bremen, GA. Interviewed are: Hugh McGraw
of the Sacred Harp Publishing Co., author Buell Cobb, Mack Wootten, Lisa
Wootten, Carl Hughes and others. The remarks of Mack Wootten about the
fellowship and joy of singing are particularly memorable. Currently
each of 46 segments must be downloaded separately.

South
Georgia Folklife Collection
radio archives and photo exhibit. Brief programs on
Sacred Harp singing in the area of Hoboken, Georgia were produced by
Laurie Kay Sommers and aired on Georgia Public Radio in 1998 and 2000.
Three of these (including one on hymn lining) were part of the 13-part
Wiregrass Ways series produced by WWET in Valdosta and supported by
the Georgia Council for the Arts. Five more short programs were produced
for the Pulse of the Planet series and feature interviews with members of
the Lee family and Hoboken-style Sacred Harp singing.
The Web site also has an exhibit
of photographs of Sacred Harp singing and explanatory legends. The
programs in the Radio Archives related to Sacred Harp and hymn lining
are as follows, where the first three are from the Wiregrass Ways and
the latter five (meant to form a single unit) are from Pulse of the
Planet:

Alabama State Council
on the Arts Radio Series. The Web site features audio files
of many "Alabama Arts" radio programs, each 28.5 minutes long. The files
are in MP3 format, with some also in the smaller WMA format for faster
downloads. Of interest to Sacred Harp singers are the following programs:

"David
Ivey, Sacred Harp Singer."Deborah Boykin interviews David
Ivey, a recipient ofthe National Heritage Fellowship. In addition to the
fellowship, he discusses his participation in the Cold Mountain soundtrack,
establishing Camp Fa Sol La, and sacred harp singing as a long-standing
tradition in his family.

Interview
with Henry Willett about "Wiregrass Notes" recording. Mr.
Willett, former director of the Center for Traditional Culture in Alabama,
discusses his involvement with the original "Wiregrass Notes" LP recording
in 1980 features the Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers. The program promotes
the 2005 "Wiregrass Notes Revised CD (see Chapter 5)
and presents four songs from this CD.

Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp
singing on New York city radio . An archived audio file of a
radio program (called Airborne Event with Dan Bodah) on
April 17, 2002 on
WFMU-FM (New York City area) has three hours of spirited
singing from the 2002 Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention, along with
six interviews with singers including Tim Eriksen, Peter Irvine, Cath Oss, and
Richard DeLong.

Electronic Mail Lists/Groups

Fasola.org hosts two distinct and
very active mailing lists (now Google groups) for shape-note music singers
and enthusiasts as well as scholars and performing artists. Both are
moderated lists, and each serves a different purpose. Both lists are
still veryactive in spite of the rise of numerous (mostly regional)
Facebook groups. Extensive information
on both lists may be found at the Fasola Mailing Lists web page.

Fasola
Singings (known from 1993-97 as
Fasola) moderated by Keith Willard and Chris Thorman.
It focuses on "traditional fasola singing experiences and closely related
topics, including such items as announcements of upcoming singings,
major events in singers lives (such as deaths, serious illness, and
births), introductions of new singers, reports of singing conventions,
and of course recipes for dinner on the grounds!" While most of the
subscribers sing from The Sacred Harp, singers from other
traditions are most highly encouraged to subscribe. Although anyone
may subscribe, only subscribers
can post messages, and all messages will be reviewed by the moderator
(occasionally after a significant delay) to ensure that they conform
to the list guidelines. General guidelines are described on the Fasola Mailing Lists web
page, but additional ones previously but not currently listed are
worth noting here:

Relevance. Messages should stick to the range of topics listed above,
in order that this list be a comfortable place for traditional Southern
shape-note singers. Topics such as verse/tune history, musical analysis,
anthropologic/cultural studies are usually outside the focus of this list.

Civility. Rudeness is not acceptable on this list. One can disagree,
even heatedly, with another member's ideas, but direct attacks on a person
are prohibited as well as unnecessary.

Copyright. No copyrighted materials without express permission of the
copyright owner.

Common sense. No attachments, "test" messages, "virus warnings",etc.

Fasola
Discussions, a list
with a different focus complementary to
Fasola-Singings, is moderated by John Bealle. It
is devoted to the "historical and technical
aspects of shape-note singing, including tunebook
history, shape note pedagogy,and musicological
analysis, as well as reviews of books, recordings,
articles, and conferences." Postings are expected
to follow the same standards of relevance,
civility, etc., that are expected in the singings list.
The postings become publicly available on the Google Groups Web site.

There are several ways to subscribe to these
lists -- by e-mail, the Google Groups Web
interface, or Fasola.org, all explained in
detail on the Fasola
List web page. The simplest way is to just
send an email message to one of these addresses:
fasola-singings-subscribe@googlegroups.com or
fasola-discussions-subscribe@googlegroups.com.
You'll receive a confirmation request e-mail (to
prove your identity)--you should reply to the
confirmation request from the same e-mail
address you used to subscribe. Then wait for a
second confirmation that you have been added.

Fasola
Questions Google Group. This is an open forum for the general
public to ask questions about Sacred Harp music, hymns, history, traditions,
or any other questions not answered on the Sacred Harp Singing web site at
http://fasola.org/. No membership is required to post a question. Sacred
Harp singers expert in various aspects of the subject will receive the
posted questions and will hopefully reply.

Fasola Songwriters
Google Group. A group discussing shape note composition in
the four-shape style of the Sacred Harp tradition. Examples of topics
include discussion of mechanical aspects of specific songs, the sources
of inspiration for song writing, Sacred Harp style "rules", reviews of
tunes, etc. The group was started in September 2010 by Robert
Vaughn of Mount Enterprise, TX. It quickly became a lively
group, with many postings by active composers of Sacred Harp style music.

Region-specific e-mail lists. Several e-mail listings
have been set up for
announcements and discussion regarding singing in a particular region. Only
subscribers can post to these lists or, for some lists, access archives.

Note: Some Sacred Harp communities have set
up (or may soon set up) Facebook pages to supplement or
potentially replace their e-mail lists. This guide lists many of these
in chapter 3.